Last Monday was International Pi Day. Why? Since March 14 is 3-14 which everyone who ever took a math class knows are the first 3 digits of the mathmatical constant. Get it? It took me a minute myself but I say it is because I am not much of a math wiz (just ask Mr. Gooch), but I like to think I am a bit of a baking wiz so in honor of Pi Day, I made us a pie. A fruit pie, peach melba to be exact. There is just something about the sweet of the peaches and the slightly tartness of the raspberries that makes me swoon whenever I think of the combination of flavors. Just writing this is making my stomach rumble and is spiking my need to see if there is any pie left in the fridge.

I used a recipe I found on http://www.food.com/ as the basis but tweaked it a bit since I now have trouble following pie recipes to the letter. Why? I blame my husband and his constant tweaking of various recipes. He is rubbing off.

Since we are just now coming out of the depths of winter (I still have snow in my yard), I used frozen fruit in the pie, adding a bit more flour to counteract the extra juices of the half thawed fruit. I also skipped a couple of ingredients (nutmeg, not a fan). and added extra creamy vanilla instead of the which cholocate raspberry truffle ice cream referred to in the food.com recipe here. All my changes and modifications are found in the recipe below.

And don't forget to mark your calendar for July 22, which is Pi Approximation Day since 22/7 (the date in date/month format) is the common approximation of pi. And another excuse to bake a pie for your friends, family, office mates or for yourself.

Directions
Preheat overn to 375
Line baking sheet with foil, place on rack in lower 1/3 of the oven.
Line 9-inch pie pan with crust.
Toss peaches with sugar, flour and ginger.
Spoon into crust, distributing evenly.
Mix raspberries with the balance of the melted jam.
Spoon raspberries over peaches. (if there is any liquid from the frozen berries, do not add to the pie, there is enough liquid in the peaches and berries).
Place top crust on pie, crimping the top and bottom edges together.
Cut a number of holes in the top to allow steam to escape.
Bake for 1 hour 30 minutes or until filling is bubbly and the crust is light brown.
Let cool on rack.
Serve with ice cream.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

I love St. Patrick's Day. Not because I am a huge fan of corned beef and cabbage but because I love hard cider (preferrably Irish, of course) and traditional irish music (especially the pipes), and I can't forget Irish Cream. :-)

While there isn't much Irish fare on the menu this week, we will still be celebrating by having some of our favorite recipes this week. And I am planning on making Irish Cream Brownies for a treat. And while it is all about the green this week, don't forget that tomorrow 3/14 is Pi Day, so you might want to make a pie tomorrow night. I am thinking a mixed berry pie using some of the fruit I have in the freezer sounds like the ticket. Yum! Looks like this is a week for desserts. And it looks like a week to spend some extra time on the excercise bike.

Sunday: Steak Perfection with corn and potato rolls
Monday: BBQ pork in the crockpot with peppers over brown rice
Tuesday: Out for dinner and Mr. Gooch is in class
Wednesday: Italian marinated chicken on the grill with harvest grain blend and a salad
Thursday: Leftovers (or Out for dinner depending on which locale has the traditional Irish music and food)
Friday: Stovetop Taco Pasta and crescent rolls
Saturday: Cheese tortellini with chicken (leftovers from Wednesday) and marinara sauce, salad and crescent rolls

Here's hoping you have a safe and happy St. Patrick's Day and get to have some tasty pie on Pi Day.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Doesn't it seem like the best laid plans come apart as soon as you make them? It seems that this as been the case since one of my resolutions was to be better about planning our menus and posting the new recipes we have been trying. Well both have already fallen by the wayside. Between the home renovations (at least the new bamboo floors are finally done), our dog (who thinks she needs to oversee the renovations) and work, things have been busier than I planned. And if you are going to post recipes, it helps to actually remember to take photos of the dishes before they are consumed. Yeah, I haven't been too good about that part. So I have about six or seven recipes that could be blogged but, yup you guessed it, no photos.

All that being said, we have a plan for this week. Yay!! It isn't particularly ambitious but there are a couple of new things or variations on some of our favorites.

Monday, December 20, 2010

It is like deja vu all over again with this week's menu plan. Needless to say, we totally didn't stick to the menu plan. Between needing to work late one night (blech), Mr. Gooch's exams (and related studying), a trip to the auto shop (transmission work...boo!) and an all around busy week, we didn't cook much in the evenings last week. I think we cooked only twice, once the taco pasta and once with a fab salad concocted by Mr. Gooch (posting to come shortly).

But on the positive side, that means that we still have all the fixings for this week's menu in the freezer and the recipes already picked out so prep will be kept to a minimum.

One nice thing about this week's recipes is that they utilize marinades so you can actually mix the marinade the night before and just throw them on the grill, Griddler, or Foreman Grill when you get home. This helps to keep cooking time to a minimum.

This last week Mr. Gooch surprised me with having dinner ready when I got home from work. While that was wonderful all in its own, it was the salad that made it absolutely memorable.

Who knew that apples, bacon, romaine and smokey seasoned ranch could combine for such tastiness? I mean, I am a firm believer that bacon makes everything better, but in this case, it is definitely true.

The sweetness of the apples, along with the saltiness of the bacon, added to the cool romaine and the slight smokey heat of the dressing combine to make a salad worth making again and again.

Directions
Combine ranch and Northwoods fire in a small bowl, set aside.
Cook bacon in a skillet until crisp. Set aside to cool.
Place apple slices in skillet with bacon fat, cooking for about 1 minute on each side. Set aside to cool.
Wipe out skillet and place cashews, toasting lightly. Set aside to cool.
Chop bacon and apples into small pieces.
In a large bowl, combine romaine, apples, bacon and dressing, tossing lightly.
Once tossed, add cashews.
Serve.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

It is the week of Thanksgiving, and that means an abbreviated dinner menu. We have two Thanksgiving dinners to prepare for, one hosted by us and one hosted by Mr. Gooch's mother. We also may be having some friends over for dinner on Wednesday.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

We were quite good about sticking to our menu plan last week though we did switch some of the days around because someone (that would be me) forgot to put the stuff in the crockpot before leaving for work on Wednesday. Oops.

We also skipped the pizza on Friday - deciding instead to head to Chili's for strong air-conditioning (we don't have central air), skillet queso and margaritas and on Saturday night, instead of FITF, Mr. Gooch made a tasty salmon to go on top of a large dinner salad on Saturday. Look for the that post coming shortly.

Our menu this week is about eating the items we already have in our fridge and freezer. We got a new fridge last week and when we were cleaning it out (and moving things around), we realized that we didn't have a good handle on what we actually had spread between our kitchen fridge, the basement fridge and the garage freezer. So other than some fresh veggies, everything on our menu was already in our freezer, fridge or pantry.

This week's plan is a mix of old favorites and some new recipes, it will be good to get back into the swing of blogging about our new recipes.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Oh my, are Mr. Gooch and I bushed after a busy weekend. Between a wedding, buying and unloading more boxes of flooring than I want to think about (55), emptying our fridges to prepare for the delivery of the new one, helping the delivery men make the switcheroo (basement fridge out the door, old kitchen fridge to the basement, new fridge into the kitchen), plus all the regular weekend stuff like laundry and cleaning - we are bushed.

So this week's menu is an easy one so we can have time to start pulling up carpet, removing tack strips and pulling off baseboard to prepare for the laying of the flooring in those 55 boxes.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Sorry for the radio silence over the last few months. There have been some big doings here at Casa Gooch and we have fallen so far off the menu planning, cooking new recipes and blogging wagons that I am not sure what the wagon even looks like anymore.

The Mister and I had gotten new jobs but our schedules totally did not connect which meant no meals together (boo hiss). So we each found another (better) job with (better) more regular schedules so we have been slowly working our way to a regular dining schedule since we actually are together in the evenings.

The summer heat has meant mainly grilling basics like chicken and brats which aren't really blogworthy. That and just being out and about for summer related activities means not much cooking at home.

We also had a freezer and a pantry that were in total organizational disarray so we really had no idea what we even had available so we did end up making plenty of calls to the local pizza place (I am positive they recognize our number by now) since that was easier than trying to dig through the chaos.

But now that things are settling in, back to being organized and cooling off a bit, we are back.

This week, to get back in the swing we are making some of our favorite dishes. But in the coming weeks, we will have new or improved recipes.

One big change in our menu planning is our usual "Forage in the Frige" or FITF is gone for the most part. Now that Mr. Gooch and I have access to microwaves at work, leftovers have become lunch. Now I just need to get more containers for our lunches.